Avoid Being Blindsided by the Competition – Explore New Opportunities

I often get asked what key traits I’ve identified in the successful businesses I’ve worked with. Certainly, one vital aspect that links them all is their willingness to explore new opportunities in order to take their company to the next level. This proactive, open-minded outlook tends to produce excellent results, especially when it’s an ethos that permeates deep into the company DNA.

Stay Aware of Your Business Context
It’s not enough to passively wait for new opportunity to land at your feet. You should be actively seeking it out! The businesses that make the most of fresh opportunities are those who are aware of the current market conditions, and who have made it their focus to keep up-to-date on new tools and technology.

They’re consistently assessing what can be done to improve their business. However, they don’t make it all about them. They’re watching what the competition is doing, and they’re learning from the successes and failures or others.

The Benefits of Staying Alert
If you make it your company ethos to seek out opportunity, then you’ll probably keep abreast of the latest market developments – and you’ll constantly be appraising whether or not these changes can alter the way your business operates. If you spy a tool that can boost productivity, you’ll probably be thinking of ways you can implement it in your own business practices. Chances are that you’ll be examining ways you can improve your products, services and efficiency levels – and thinking how you can stay ahead of the competition.

Improving Your Bottom Line
No business would bother focusing on fresh opportunity if it didn’t have a positive impact on their company. Successful business owners aren’t just looking to increase their turnover – they’re looking to improve it. Focusing only on increasing profits actually means that you’re missing the bigger picture.

Moving Your Business Ahead
It’s not enough to simply spot an opportunity. You need to take advantage of it – adopting a proactive approach to put your business in a different position. Whilst it might not always be a ‘better’ position, part of the natural DNA of a successful business is that its position is always changing as it adapts to market opportunities. If undertaken with the right analytical approach, chances of an opportunity putting your business in a better position rises significantly.

Through the exploration and implementation of new opportunity, you can create a strong business development path – ensuring that your competition needs to work hard just to catch up with you, not blind-side you.

In my book $20K to $2 million in 2 years, I look into the advantages of having a business that has a culture or DNA that encourages innovation. It talks about how such a culture can ultimately put your business ahead of the competition and keep them in their place as second best. You can get a free preview of the book here. Or, if you’d like a copy for yourself, you can purchase it here.

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Raymond Huan is a business coach, and has helped countless business owners expand their companies for over 10 years. Read more about his valuable insight in other posts on the Excelerated Business Solutions Blog or follow him on Twitter.